World News | Berlin Museums Ready to Return Skulls from African Ex-colony

Berlin, Jan. 18 (AP) Berlin’s museum authority said Wednesday it was ready to return hundreds of human skulls from the former German East African colony after years of investigating their origins.

During their research at the city’s Museum of Prehistory and Ancient History, scientists examined 1,135 skulls. Of these, 904 could be assigned to areas of present-day Rwanda; 202 in Tanzania; and 22 in Kenya.

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In the case of seven other skulls, a more precise assignment was not possible.

“The clear aim of the investigation into the provenance of the human remains is to return them to the affected countries,” said Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, an authority that oversees many of Berlin’s museums, including the Museum of Prehistory and Ancient History. .

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“We are ready for immediate restitution and are now waiting for signals from the countries of origin,” he added.

The vast majority of skulls come from burial sites, especially cemeteries or burial caves, but some also from local execution sites and, in some cases, also from executions by Germans, according to a statement from the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

The human remains examined belong to the anthropological collection of about 7,700 skulls that the museum authority had taken from Berlin’s Charité hospital in 2011.

Due to the size of the collection and the diversity of its geographical origin, it has not yet been possible to examine all the skulls, the museum authority said.

The human remains from East Africa, which at the time they were removed were under German colonial rule, were first examined in a test project. In order to clarify the exact origin of the skulls, of which almost no written records had been preserved, intensive archival work was necessary, including field research by Rwandan scientists.

In recent years, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has made efforts to return various human remains and artifacts that were stolen by the Germans and other European colonialists in the past and ended up in collections in Berlin. Among the most famous artifacts are hundreds of the so-called Benin bronzes that Germany began returning to Nigeria late last year following an agreement between Berlin and Abuja. (AP)

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